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December 2010 Newsletter

nathan

Administrator
Staff member
Real Person
Male
Greetings Brothers and Sisters in Christ!

Regardless of how you are celebrating our Lord’s precious gift of Himself at this time, we trust it’s something your family focuses on throughout the year. We would encourage you to give relationally and unconditionally, as He did, to your own family, and to all he puts in your path. Because many are extra busy (we hope you avoid being TOO busy and you take time to contemplate the true ‘reason’), we’ll keep the news short before giving you an interesting article to consider.

Year-end retreat almost here!
In under two weeks, many of us will be traveling for our New Year’s retreat, in southern Georgia, Dec 31st-Jan 2nd . We are excited that a number of new folks will be attending, and look forward to growing our East Coast circle of fellowship yet again. We are also very excited to announce that pastor, author, and theologian William Luck will be speaking and participating, along with our own Dr. K.R. Allen. If you are not familiar with William Luck, you can see his bio here, and read his book on Divorce and Re-Marriage: Recovering the Biblical View, including the appendix On the Morality of Biblical Polygyny. We think you’ll find the sessions planned for this retreat very helpful, and the fellowship an absolute blessing. (Author Tom Shipley may still be present and speaking also – he won’t know until last minute, it looks like.) The lodge rooms where we are staying are not yet full, and the price is very reasonable, so reply to this newsletter now if you’d like to receive the retreat details.

We are giving some thought to next year’s retreat schedule, and we hope to be able to meet many more of you in 2011 – our growth in 2010 should certainly make that possible. Drop us a note at staff@biblicalfamilies.org at any time. Please receive blessings sent in prayer from our homes to yours this week – and know we are available for prayer or counsel to all in need of it, this week or at any time.

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What Do John Calvin, Patrick Henry,
& the Evangelical Polygyny Movement Have in Common?


One need not look long at any standard educational curriculum to discover that most institutions that value mental acuity believe a healthy dose of historical knowledge ought to permeate the minds of the student body. Such should not be surprising as intellectual development has much to do with preparing the mind for future endeavors. And thus to march forward faithfully into the future all students of valor need to keep one eye on the past as a guide post for their moral compass and one eye on the future for directional vision.

Even Apostle Paul told us something similar in his writings to the Corinthians. He taught us that there were “things” that “took place” with Israel which served as “examples for us” so that “we might not desire evil as they did” (1 Cor. 10:6). The study of history serves us well as by examination of the past we can learn the deeds that we need to avoid today. Yet the Bible also shows us that history can be valuable as well in providing for us a moral foundation that we ought to continue to build upon in future endeavors. Solomon perhaps addresses this metaphorically: “Do not move the ancient landmark that your fathers have set” (Proverbs 22:28).

Therefore, history serves us with a dual purpose. We can learn from the past mistakes of men and women of valor and we can also learn from the solid stakes that were driven into the ground by men and women of valor that were to mark holy ground that is not to be removed or forsaken. In both cases, the student today has a set of tools at his disposal which he may use whenever providence provides a person that needs a word of instruction to overcome some anomaly from the sacred and true path of righteousness.

So how does a study of past history and history in the making today show a common denominator among Dr. John Calvin, the one most responsible for systematizing the spirit of the Reformation, Patrick Henry, the man whose voice and valor called for a new country to be established, and the modern day Evangelical Polygyny movement? At first glance one might think that the three ideas of Calvin, Henry, and Evangelical Polygyny have no common theme running through them.

However, they most certainly do have a common theme running through them. I have used the term “valor” throughout this devotional. I find among all three, Calvin, Henry, and Evangelical Polygynists a similar cord. And oddly enough, I find that all three ideas flow like a river from one to another.

Dr. Calvin has been called by some the father of America. How can this be when he was not even alive when America was born? Dr. John Eidsmoe, a brilliant scholar whose credentials make any man or woman of humility grateful for his grit in the gridiron of growth in grace, has properly noted that it was the mind of Calvin and his systematization of the Reformation doctrines that set the stage of America to be born. Without a doubt his courage to set those ideas and doctrines forth in writing when unpopular to do so, and his tenacity to disciple students in those precious ideas eventually led to the founding of America. Here, though a longer quote than normal, we can see that Eidsmoe, who follows the lead of brilliant historians, specifically says:

Colonists came from many lands and arrived at many different times to build a new nation. Some landed at Jamestown in 1607; others landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620, having crossed the Atlantic on the Mayflower. In 1630 the Arabella arrived at Salem with a group of settlers. Throughout the 1600s shiploads of eager settlers arrived at various ports to begin a new life. Some colonists were wealthy; some were slaves or indentured servants. Other colonists owned nothing but the clothes on their backs. Although many colonists came up empty-handed, they did not come empty-minded. They brought with them the heritage, culture, and ideas from the lands of their birth. In forming the new nation and developing its Constitution the following century, the delegates at the 1787 Convention did not intend to put into practice new and untried ideas. The framers of the American Constitution based their political concepts on the tried and tested ideas of the past. These men were intelligent, well-educated and widely read. They combined the best ideas they read about to establish a government for the United States. Therefore, it is appropriate to ask: What influenced the founders of this nation? Which books did they read? Which thinkers did they respect? To which theological, philosophical, and political systems did they subscribe? Their ideas came from a variety of sources but one source stands out above all the others. Dr. E. W. Smith says it well:

“If the average American citizen were asked, who was the founder of America, the true author of our great Republic, he might be puzzled to answer. We can imagine his amazement at hearing the answer given to this question by the famous German historian, Ranke, one of the profoundest scholars of modern times. Says Ranke, ‘John Calvin was the virtual founder of America.’”

Dr. Smith continues:

“These revolutionary principles of republican liberty and self-government, taught and embodied in the system of Calvin, were brought to America, and in this new land where they have borne so mighty a harvest were planted, by whose hands?—the hands of the Calvinists. The vital relation of Calvin and Calvinism to the founding of the free institutions of America, however strange in some ears the statement of Ranke may have sounded, is recognized and affirmed by historians of all lands and creeds.”

Dr. Smith is not alone in his assessment. Bancroft, probably the leading American historian of the nineteenth century, simply called Calvin the “father of America.” Bancroft, far from being a Calvinist himself, added, “He who will not honor the memory and respect the influence of Calvin knows but little of the origin of American liberty.”

The Roman Catholic scholar Emilio Castelar, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Madrid and later President of the Republic of Spain in 1873, acknowledged,

“It was necessary for the republican movement that there should come a morality more austere than Luther’s, the morality of Calvin, and a Church more democratic than the German, the Church of Geneva. The Anglo-Saxon democracy has for its lineage a book of primitive society—the Bible. It is the product of a severe theology learned by the few Christian fugitives in the gloomy cities of Holland and Switzerland, where the morose shade of Calvin still wanders. . . And it remains serenely in its grandeur, forming the most dignified , most moral and most enlightening portion of the human race.”

Many, if not the vast majority of colonial Americans came from Calvinistic backgrounds (John Eidsmoe, Christianity and the Constitution: The Faith of our Founding Fathers, p. 17-19).

The life, legacy, and love that Calvin poured out in his short lifespan lived on in the hearts and minds of those who came to this world to set up a city upon a hill for the entire world to see. His valor led to many embarking upon a new journey: to sail to a new world to build a new way of life.

With Patrick Henry, we also find a man of valor. In the same sense as Calvin he too displayed heroic, brilliant, and austere characteristics for the pursuit of liberty here in America. One recent author, the distinguished Visiting Fellow in American History at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, has even called Patrick Henry the “Lion of Liberty.”

How does Henry show us the same spirit of Calvin? Just as with Calvin’s valor, which as you can see from above, led to a radical dose of courage in those saints who sailed to this new world, so too Henry’s valor moved people to action and continued the providential work of bringing a new country into existence. One Colonial said of Henry, that he was “by far the most powerful speaker” he had ever “heard” (Harlow Giles Unger, Lion of Liberty: Patrick Henry and the Call to a New Nation, p. 83). It was this man’s valor, cunning skill to organize others for a cause, and his close coordinated efforts with people like George Washington, that lit the fires of the will to fight for liberty at all cost. On March 20th, 1775, at the building owned by the St. John’s Church in Richmond Virginia Patrick Henry stood up to give one of the most famous speeches in history that led to a new spirit of liberty swelling up in the minds of thousands that would lead them to go forth to fight for a new land where liberty reigned. In this speech Henry said in part of that speech:

“Gentleman may cry peace, but there is no peace, the war is actually begun! The next gale from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand here idle? What is it the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me give me liberty or give me death” (Harlow Giles, Unger, p. 98-99).

Unger notes that “after the delegates had caught their collective breaths, the convention passed Henry’s resolution and appointed a committee to prepare a plan for embodying, arming, and disciplining the Virginia militia” (p. 100).

So how does the life and legacy of Calvin and Henry reflect the Evangelical Polygyny movement? The Evangelical Polygyny movement is a continuation of the valor of men and women who have the resilience and resolve to learn from their history! They see the errors of men and women who were polygynous in Scripture for sure. Furthermore, the wise and astute saints today still see those who blunder along the plight of polygyny and they take good notes of such.

Yet they also see the ancient marks of authenticity where the law of love and liberty can be lived within this lifestyle! And consequently, the Evangelical Polygynist embraces the gospel, Christ as Lord, the Bible in its totality, and the examples of not just the OT patriarchs but the premiere example of Christ Jesus himself, who has multiple members in his own body, as the cornerstone to the faith. And with that eye on the past the Evangelical Polygynist with one eye on the future marches forward with faith, hope, and love that there will come a new day here in this beloved land and across the globe where the love of a man with his family may be freely exemplified among the masses just as commonly as is the spirit of both the Reformation and the American dream of liberty! And to that end these beloved men and women will march, and if with the same valor of Calvin and Henry, praying and pleading with each New Year more and more people shall stumble upon the precious path that bespeaks of Christ and his love for his churches.

Dr. K.R. Allen
Resident Bible Scholar
Biblical Families Ministry
 
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